Dualities
by showyoursmile
Summary: Five short drabbles about resident Shinra spy Reeve Tuesti, spanning from childhood to the end of FFVII.


**I. The Puppeted Puppetmaster**

A double life. A spy. Deceiving those who didn't trust you in the first place...was it better than deceiving those who trusted you implicitly?

A good man. An advocate for the citizens of Midgar. To comply with a broken system that destroyed lives for the sake of progress...was it worse than deception?

Reeve's mind was full of questions, of dedication, of good intentions, but devoid of answers.

**II. Freedom**

Night-visioned blurs raced past, ipatter-patter, whoooosh-thump/i. Traveling companions asleep, he was alone, alone with the trees and the structures of a place he'd never been.

Mechanical legs pushed into the air, paws grabbed deftly at the roof of a brick-and-clay hut, ambling to the top, _pad-pad-pad_. Those legs ran, ran, shot clear to the next hut with another graceful leap.

Physically, Cait Sith felt nothing, like a dream, a window to another world. No pump of blood, no harsh surface against his paws. Mentally, Reeve felt a sense of awe. This little village, so quiet and worn down...

A blown reactor in the distance. A reactor he'd designed, so out of place in this scenery.

Tiny legs walked _clink-clink_ over a metal patch in the roof. The world outside of Midgar, at his fingertips without ever leaving his desk... Watching Cloud and the others was his assignment, but exploration satisfied a sense of curiosity.

Cait Sith needed to return to the group before his absence was noticed. Reeve needed to leave the office and get some sleep before he made a pillow of his keyboard again...but for now, he would run, leap, scramble with a skill his executive-stiffened human body could never manage.

**III. Memory**

When Reeve was a child, small hands built small towers from scrap metal he found in an alley, forming little cities in his room, each tended with care. One corner tower crept as high as the ceiling.

"Reach for the sky," his father had said. "Build something no one else has."

Reeve, a rather serious child, took his father's words to heart. He kept building, kept studying and learning how much more fascinating the large-scale could be, compared to a scrap tower. The finesse required to ensure each detail was attended to...

The first prototype of Cait Sith was an imperfect masterpiece. Something no one had built before...The smallest of his creations, the most brilliant of his creations. Staying up too late, fingers aching from the tinkering, eyes strained from the computer screen's soft glow. Cait Sith's first words - "Well how d'ya like that!" - sent a flood of satisfaction through him. A robot, distinct from any other, an entity in itself, yet an extension of some younger, more playful side of Reeve.

Reeve Tuesti was the architect of the great city of Midgar, the mind behind the Mako Reactor, but Cait Sith? Cait Sith was his favorite achievement.

**IV. Midgar**

A towering jungle of metal situated on top of another towering jungle of metal. Theaters and restaurants, shops and homes, a city so big that taking a train from one side to another was commonplace. Framing the city were Mako Reactors, more in one city than existed elsewhere in the world, powering the entire planet with their bountiful flood of energy.

The crowning glory of Reeve's career.

The manifestation of his childhood junk towers, dark and dreary but beautiful to his eyes, full of people carrying out their lives within the bounds of his looming brainchild.

More than stopping AVALANCHE, more than helping Shinra, Reeve's concern rested with the protection of Midgar and its people.

**V. Motive**

Spy. Traitor. Twice-turned turncoat. His motives were pure, his execution difficult to trust.

The Crater was just outside the Highwind - the rest of his comrades, just behind him. Through the eyes of Cait Sith, Reeve could see them all, each ready to end this nightmare. These terrorists, who had become something like friends, each had reasons for being here, for coming back...had a drive and a need that was personal and individual.

The previous weeks had been a rollercoaster, changing him in ways he never expected. What began as a plan to foil the progress of a destructive eco-terrorist organization had transformed into a realization of the monster his mind had created, of what his reactors were doing to the Planet. Those terrorists became, not enemies, but allies, as they slowly welcomed him back into the fold, despite his jarring betrayal.

This was not a game. This was bigger than the squabble of man versus corporation, bigger than Midgar and its people.

This was about the entire _Planet_ and its people. This was about trust and teamwork and personal sacrifice.

Trapped within Midgar, he would help save the world - not because he was curious, not because someone bullied him into it, but because it was the right thing to do.


End file.
